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Thursday, February 9, 2012

DIY diaper detergent

I used cloth diapers for all 3 of my kids, the first one (15 years ago) the diaper were pretty basic nothing like what they are today. When my second child came, twelve years later, I still had the diapers that I used with my first. I upgraded to some AIO (all in ones). They are awesome, rarely leak and little to no diaper rash.

I use to just wash my diapers with the regular laundry detergent, but they would get smelly after a while. Sunshine is a natural diaper cleaning agent, but when it's winter. Hanging diapers outside...well they would take a while.

I started Googling natural diaper detergents and found some really good recipes. I thought I would give it a try. I only use 1 or 2 tbsp of this. I have a top load washing machine...so I can fill up the washer with diapers and water, let them soak for 30 minutes, and then run it. I am super happy with the price and results!!

Find a big container and fill it with equal parts of washing soda and borax.
Then grate a bar of Dr.Bronners soap ( I use peppermint, it leaves a nice smell), and run it through a food processor. Pour it into the container and give it shake to mix it all up.

I've been making and using my own laundry soap for almost four years now, and I just switched from the liquid version to the powdered version. The liquid version is good, but if you don't shake or stir it quite a bit while it is cooling and then several times over the next few days after you make it, it really gels into a difficult to use solid. It also takes up way more space than the powder. The powder is working just as well in cleaning my clothes.

I've used a number of different bar soaps to make it, and they all seem to work equally well, Ivory, Bronner's and recently a really nice lemon smelling bar of actual laundry soap from Italy that I got from Bosa Foods on sale for $2. One thing I've found is that if you grate the soap and leave it in a bowl open to the air for a day or two, it sort of dries out and then powders into a really fine powder in the food processor and dissolves better when you put it into the machine when you do cold washes. I also add a few scoops of the powdered oxyclean to the recipe and find my whites don't get as dingy over time.